Classic & Vintage Metal Detector Info :smile:

[Sven]

Thought I would repost this for any forum members new to this forum who have an interest in the older machines.
My website is chock loaded with download-able catalogs from most manufacturers since the later 1970's.
Each catalog download is the full size version I spent hundreds of hours scanning and putting together a few years ago.
http://www.treasurelinx.com/home1.html
Now you can see the so called dinosaur machines us older guys have been using in the past.

Interesting note many of us still use them today and we still find treasure with them.
Many are still competitive with those made today...especially in all-metal VLF mode.

Hey, who knows, if you ever had an inkling to try an oldie and need some more info, just ask away, there's a member here that can help.

 

[TC-NM]

Thanks Sven for all the hard work and dedication to the older units. I've been going to your website for quite a few years now and truly enjoy it especially the Modification button on "how to build your own headphones".

I'm planning on making several pairs using different type of speakers from 150 to 300 to 600 ohm rated. I've scrounged around thrift stores and the local flea market for parts, cables, old speaker parts, etc.

Keep up the good work!

TC-NM

 

[SilverFinger]

Very nice! Excellent! Love that old stuff...

 

[mapper1234]

I bought an Ace 350 & the person I bought it from had an older detector......I think it is a Fisher VLF-660 Mother lode. Has anybody used one of these machines & can enlighten me as to how well they work & if they are very difficult to use.

 

[Sven]

You would be better off asking as a brand new topic so it's not hidden within a totally different subject.

 

[Gene]

You have an excellent website Sven ! Have used it many times.
Good hunting to you ! Gene

 

[Tom_in_CA]

If I'm not mistaken, that's a straight VLF all-metal machine. Circa 1975 or '76-ish. As such, it would be similar to any of the all-metal pinpoint modes of the VLF/TR generation of mid to late 1970's machines. Ok for things like beach hunting or prospecting, where you need no disc, but .... not suited for junky sites where you're going to want to knock out iron.

If I'm wrong and that Fisher did have a disc. mode on there, it's going to be a very wimpy TR disc.

Pretty much a dinasour by today's standards. I'm betting that today's power-house discriminators (explorers, etc...) will get every bit as deep on coins as that machine could, in all-metal mode, yet while discriminating at the same time. So not much use for those old straight-VLF-all-metal machines IMHO.

 

[n4ue]

Sven, a new member here. Thank you for putting this together!

Here's a tip for making your own headphones......

You can purchase el-cheapo full ear hearing protectors on eBay, Lowes, etc.
Next, you can get 2" 8 ohm speakers very cheaply there as well. I bought a case of 50 a few years ago. I 've been a ham for 50+ years and the homemade ones sound as good (or better) than the high priced ones. I just tried out a Sentry 880CD headset. Not only weigh almost zero, they sound wonderful.
One thing, they are stereo so you can cut off the 1/8" connector and rewire a 1/4" plug. They have a very long cord, with a built in volume control (which I super-glue fully open). ha ha
Gaming has made headsets very cheap and all you need is a 1/8" to 1/4" phono adapter. You can get a 1/8" stereo to 1/4" mono adaptor at Radio Shack.....

ron
N4UE

 

[NiagracountyNY]

Very nice website! Thank you for sharing all your hard work.

 

[trukedd]

I recently posted this under the topic 'Metal Detecting Repair Forum, can we have one.'

I am new to this Forum but i think this is a great idea from my standpoint I have a 1960's 1970's Metrotech 220 Metal Detector but the brown wire has come detached in the bullet head control box/battery compartment but with a 'Repair Forum' the answer to my problem would probably be answered easily, having said that anyone know where it goes so i can get it up and running instead of it languishing in its case when it should be being used.
There are probably lots of simple faults that could be sorted out on a Repair Forum from other Detector users experiences.

Can anyone help with this problem of the brown wire on my Metrotech 220.


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[infinitempg]

Newbie posting thanks for the info. Have a vintage Garrett Groundhog (toggle switch) that has spent most of its life in my closet beside my rusty golf clubs. Have some property I have been given permission to explore and figured I'd pop in some new batteries and see if I could find some mason jars full of gold coins buried at some old homered sites. Think I still have the hang of it but would appreciate some hints and refreshers.

Thanks!!!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Ha, the "groundhog" being called "vintage" ? You're making some of us feel old! That was actually made and marketed up till perhaps as late as 1982-ish.

You want to start in all-metal mode, and find a patch of clean ground. Get your threshold at waist height. Lower to the ground (in multiple spots to compare, to make sure you didn't accidentally come down on metal). If the threshold gets louder, you have to raise back up to waist height, adjust the ground balance counter clockwise. Hit the toggle to return to threshold, and repeat. If the threshold goes silent when lowering to the ground, then the ground balance has to turned clockwise. Raise back to waist height, hit the toggle to return, and repeat process. Keep repeating till the threshold be the same whether held at waist height, or lowered to the ground.

Next, if you want to use disc, set your disc preference. Raise the coil to a *hair* off the ground. Click right on the toggle which puts you into disc. Then lower the coil that 1/2" (or whatever). The closer you get the coil in that process, before lowering, the deeper you will go. However, if you click it will flat on the ground, and then .... heaven -help-you if raised the coil, it will blare off. So this was known as "scrubbing". A real pain-in-the-b*tt, which made motion disc. VERY welcome, haha

If any other Q's, post away.

 

[trojdor]

Ha, the "groundhog" being called "vintage" ? You're making some of us feel old! That was actually made and marketed up till perhaps as late as 1982-ish.

You want to start in all-metal mode, and find a patch of clean ground. Get your threshold at waist height. Lower to the ground (in multiple spots to compare, to make sure you didn't accidentally come down on metal). If the threshold gets louder, you have to raise back up to waist height, adjust the ground balance counter clockwise. Hit the toggle to return to threshold, and repeat. If the threshold goes silent when lowering to the ground, then the ground balance has to turned clockwise. Raise back to waist height, hit the toggle to return, and repeat process. Keep repeating till the threshold be the same whether held at waist height, or lowered to the ground.

Next, if you want to use disc, set your disc preference. Raise the coil to a *hair* off the ground. Click right on the toggle which puts you into disc. Then lower the coil that 1/2" (or whatever). The closer you get the coil in that process, before lowering, the deeper you will go. However, if you click it will flat on the ground, and then .... heaven -help-you if raised the coil, it will blare off. So this was known as "scrubbing". A real pain-in-the-b*tt, which made motion disc. VERY welcome, haha

If any other Q's, post away.

Tom, thanks for the trip down memory lane.
BTW, I know how you feel.
I'ts hard for me to grasp that 1982 was 32 years ago. That means (among other things) that unless the person you're talking to is older than 32, they weren't even born when we were using new GroundHogs.
I've talked to many co-workers and clents and had to tell them, "Dude! I've got cars older than you..."

If it helps, remember; "We'll never be this young again."

mike

 

[Wayfarer]

Wow, what a great trip down memory lane. I still remember clearly that dreary drizzly day in 1979 when I brought home my first detector, a White's Coinmaster 2DB. I splurged and got the 2DB so I could get the little intensity meter and basic TR Disc. In my own backyard, that day, I found at least a dozen silver coins all no more than 1-2" down. Then, over the next couple of years at the local parks and schools (anything within bike riding distance!) , I'd keep myself well-supplied with pocket change for all the sodas, bubble gum, and comic books that a young adolescent could want! In those days, 20 silver coin afternoons were the norm. Silver was so common that often times I'd just spend them at face value on the way home at the local five and dime store for a pack of gum, caps for my cap gun, or whatever. Most places I went, I'd find a silver coin every few feet and would be a little miffed it any of the sites I went to had obviously been hunter before me ... but back then that was thankfully pretty rare. Of course I kick myself for the mason jars full of silver coins that I either spent, or sold to the local coin store at spot minus 20%. It's great to remember back to those days. I will always associate those old blue box White's with the glory days of pocketsfull of silver coins! Thanks Sven!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

hey wayfarer, what state are you in ? Sheesk your area must've had low detector traffic/sales. Because by "1979" the pickens weren't that good in my area anyhow. Well, I remember hitting virgin sites like you're talking about, but they certainly weren't "every park" and they certainly weren't "20 silver afternoons". Doh! Yours sounds more like a 1969 post, not a 1979 post

 

[Wayfarer]

Hi Tim. That was back in northern NJ, Madison, Chatham, and Florham Park. The places I hunted were mostly schools and churches, and a lot of private homes. Pretty much everybody let me hunt their yards and thought it was quite a curiosity that a 10 year old kid was there with a metal detector The schools and parks had all misty been hunted before, but there were always large patches of virgin ground. At my very own elementary school, which was built in the 1920's, the obvious areas, like around the large trees and playground equipment, had been hunted, but the outlying grounds were all still virgin. My favorite area was along the treeline at the back of the ball field. Knowing a thing or two about how the kids played in that playground let me find the good spots that were less obvious. It was rare that I'd go to a location that had been completely hunted. Heck my TD Disc machine was only good down to 2" (I used to run it with a fair amount of disc, blissfully unaware of the depth I was losing) and if somebody had been there before me, I sure knew it. But I usually found enough virgin swaths to get me into the silver. It was about like nowadays when you get into a good clad location (usually somewhere that was hunted out long ago and has a buildup of 15 years or so of modern clad, you know the type of site) and you're practically vacuuming clad out of the ground... except that every 5th quarter or dime is silver! My biggest regret now is not learning how to use that machine with less discrimination. I was limiting myself to the surface coins only and so the vast majority of my silvers were recent rosies and Washingtons, with the occasional Merc.

Starting in about the mid 80's, or at least that's when I noticed it, many sites I started going to had been completely gone over. And it was very hard to find even small patches that had not been detected at least once. By this time though I was living in Dallas, Texas and was able to drive. I usually hit the public parks in the old part of the city, in retrospect the most obvious and accessible locations. My good finds were usually deep stuff that my 6000D could reach. But I could still usually find a few tiny patches of virgin ground every so often. I remember on one hunt at the Old City Park in Dallas, a small park near downtown that had been pounded over and over. I wasn't finding much, so on a whim I went over to an old wooden fence that had about 6 inches of space at the bottom where I could just fit my coil. I ran my coil along there under the fence and in amongst the nails, I found 4-5 beautiful Indian Heads in about 30 minutes. Public parks were where I first noticed that the easy finds were nearly all gone.

So probably some areas of the country and certain types of sites got hunted out sooner than others. The parks seemed to go first. The nearest White's dealer to my house in NJ was a good 45 minute drive away, and as I recall, there weren't any dealers of any other brands that were any closer, so maybe that had something to do with it too. I count myself lucky to have experienced the tail end of the great glory days of virgin hunting and have nothing but awe and respect to those, like you, who were around since the very earliest days. You've truly seen the whole history of the hobby from its very earliest days. That's very cool!

One thing is that I will always associate those early good times with are those big beautiful blue boxes that were the White's machines of that era. Sven's posting and his effort in scanning and posting those old detector catalogs brought me right back to those early days. I hadn't seen the 1979 catalog with my 2DB in it in 35 years. Back then I had gone over that catalog a thousand times fantasizing what it would be like to be able to afford one of those higher end machines. I think I remembered every picture from that catalog from 35 years ago. Thanks Sven!

 

[Tom_in_CA]

thanx for the retrospective look back. Good story !